Independence Day 2 Will Visit Earth in 2015

In 1996, an actor by the name of Will Smith was joined by other great names like Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum in one of the biggest blockbuster hits of all time…..Fox’s Independence Day. The film made over $50 million in it’s opening weekend and went on to become one of the best action sci-fi movies of all time. Now, almost 20 years later, it looks like we’ll be looking up at the sky again in July 2015.

Now I had read a good while back that Director Roland Emmerich had been toying with the idea of doing a sequel but (and I may be wrong here) would really only be interested in a sequel if Smith would come back also. Later Smith was reported saying that “if his schedule was free then yeah he would be interested.” Seems like there might have been more to it though as recent news confirms that His Royal Freshness will NOT be back:

“Will Smith can not come back because he’s too expensive, but he’d also be too much of a marquee name,” said Emmerich. It would be too much……We have like maybe half of the people that you know would know from the first film (in the script) and the other half people who are new.”
– from NY Daily News

As more news was released we found out that intially there were going to be not one but two films to follow in ID4’s footsteps. However it looks like Fox has stuck a pin in the second sequel for the time being given the fact that they have only confirmed the first sequel as of now. In the modern film world we’re living in that consists of vampires, zombies, comic book heroes, and reboots…..why the interest in breathing new life back into Independence Day? In 2012, the film’s co-screenwriter Dean Devlin had this to say:

“We resisted doing the sequel for years because we still wanted to honor the first one. The first one gave us all careers, and we really love that movie and loved the experience,” Devlin explained. “We didn’t want to make a movie because it was financially a good idea, we only wanted to do it when we had an idea and a concept that creatively felt like it honored the first one — that it felt like an organic sequel as opposed to ‘let’s just go make some more money.’

“I feel like we got it,” he continued. “I think it took a long time, but I feel like we finally got something that really feels like, ‘that’s worth seeing as a sequel to Independence Day.’ ”

It looks like Roland and Dean have the right idea and I for one cannot wait to see what they have in store for us! What do you think? Has there been enough time to grant ID4 a sequel or should we let an awesome movie like this just fly off into the solo-flim sunset? Let us know in comments below!